Leaving Los Angeles

By: Joe Strupp Imagine you're a daily paper in a major city, and a new municipality, with a population equal to Phoenix's and an area comparable to Chicago's, is suddenly created next door. More than a million people -- nearly all current or potential newspaper readers -- are relocated, in a sense, from the major city to the new entity, with new government leaders, new taxes, and a host of new concerns.

At the same time, the existing city immediately loses a third of its population, a good chunk of its tax base, and a significant slice of its civic identity.

If you're the Los Angeles Times or the Los Angeles Daily News, this imagined scenario could one day (perhaps even soon) become reality. In November, voters will decide the fate of a ballot measure that would allow the San Fernando Valley -- all 1.3 million people and 222 square miles -- to secede from Los Angeles. Although it appears unlikely to pass this year, its potential for dramatically changing the face of America's second-largest city has already given the proposal national exposure and drawn heated reactions from local officials and pundits.

Almost as dramatic as the potential impact on residents and leaders is secession's likely effect on the city's two daily papers. The possibility of a new, separate city -- which would rank sixth nationwide in population -- rising out of part of Los Angeles brings a whole host of potential headaches, benefits, and uncertainties to editors and publishers.

"It will be quite a journalistic challenge," says Michael Parks, former Times editor and current director of the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. "There will be very sharp competition to cover the new city and a whole set of new issues."

In addition to forcing the dailies to change and expand coverage, secession could have major effects on advertising, circulation, marketing, and the overall image of the two papers, especially the much smaller Daily News, which is based in the Valley and has long proclaimed itself as the voice of the mostly suburban area.

"When you are the only newspaper in the sixth-largest [U.S.] city, you will get a lot more attention," says David Fleming, chairman of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, a group of business organizations that is closely following secession efforts. "Daily News advertisers and subscribers will increase because people there will want to know what is going on in the new city."

The Daily News "clearly benefits if it becomes the dominant daily in a clearly defined political unit rather than a daily covering a part of Los Angeles," observes newspaper analyst John Morton, president of Morton Research Inc. in Silver Spring, Md. Len Wood, a local city-government consultant and former city manager of several Southern California municipalities, agrees. "The Times has everything to lose," he says. "The Daily News will become the stronger newspaper there [in the Valley]."

On the surface, that theory seems to make sense. But interviews with editors, advertising executives, circulation managers, and others familiar with the Southern California newspaper market have produced a wide range of opinions about how secession would help or hurt either paper. The truth is, no clear prediction can be made because such an event has not occurred in recent history.

San Fernando looks marvelous

Although Los Angeles is one of 45 U.S. cities with at least two daily papers, its situation is unlike most. While competing dailies in Chicago, Washington, and Honolulu cover essentially the same stories for somewhat similar readers, the L.A. Daily News and Times have different missions and serve vastly different readerships.

The Times, a 121-year-old behemoth of journalism with an average 980,611 copies in weekday circulation and a reputation for national and international coverage, has long treated the Los Angeles area as its own. Although it has scaled back its local approach, including incursions in the Valley, to focus more on regional and state news, the Times remains the dominant daily - even in the Valley, where it outsells the "hometown" Daily News by 19%.

The Daily News, on the other hand, has been a seven-day paper for only 23 years and boasts a weekday circulation of just 177,170. Unlike the Times, which is based in downtown Los Angeles, the Daily News operates out of the city's Woodland Hills section, in the cradle of Valley life. And it focuses predominantly on news of nearby areas, such as Van Nuys, Pacoima, and Northridge.

The two papers' divergent focuses and locations mirror the vast difference -- some say feud -- that exists between the city's suburban Valley and downtown areas and has led, in many ways, to the push for secession. Separated by the Santa Monica Mountains, the far-flung Valley has long been seen as the forgotten stepchild to Los Angeles' downtown skyscrapers, Hollywood tourist spots, and Sunset Boulevard nightlife.

A quick glance at the two papers' front pages spells out the distinct approaches.

On a recent Tuesday, the Times Valley Edition's front page offered two international stories and four national stories, with no local datelines, while the Daily News led with coverage of the secession campaign, rising Valley home prices, and Valley residents' complaints of poor street maintenance. Inside, the News reported Valley-related stories on a Sylmar trash program and a Granada Hills man who found his lost pet after two years. The Times' only Valley stories, on crossing-guard safety and a drug sweep, ran on pages B-2 and B-3. "The Times still sees itself more as a regional resource," says Martin Saiz, director of the Center for Southern California Studies at California State University, Northridge.

Valley pearls

Valley secession has simmered for decades. It turned hot in recent years partly because of a special report the Daily News ran in 1996 titled, "Does the Valley Get Its Fair Share?" The six-page package provided statistics on everything from street maintenance to library branches to parking spaces, arguing that the Valley's 1.3 million residents received fewer services per capita than the city's remaining 2.4 million people, while paying more in taxes and fees.

Although the paper steered clear of outright secession endorsement, then as now, the report marked the beginning of a campaign to inform readers of how secession might make life better. "We saw that the Valley was not getting its fair share, and we are covering it," says David Butler, Daily News editor for the past five years. While it has only one full-time reporter assigned exclusively to secession, Butler says several general-assignment reporters also cover it.

The Times belatedly created a five-person secession team in May to report solely on the pending vote. Editors admit the paper did not make the issue a priority until recently, but claim the coverage is as complete as possible now.

Along with increased coverage has come increased scrutiny of how the two newspapers are reporting the issue and charges that each has let their opposing biases get in the way. "Virtually any ill in Los Angeles has been jumped on as a reason for secession in the Daily News," says Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Local Agency Formation Commission, which placed the secession measure on the ballot. "The Times, meanwhile, has been the yin to the Daily News' yang, pointing out any problems with secession."

Financial contributions to each side of the issue have brought criticism as well. Those include a 1998 donation of $60,000 to Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment (Valley VOTE) by the Daily News and a $40,000 membership fee paid by the Times Mirror Co. (the Times' former owner) to the Los Angeles Business Advisors, an anti-secession group of powerful downtown corporations.

Along with the Valley secession story, the papers have had to cover another secession campaign, this one by Hollywood, which also will be put to a vote in November. Anti-secession forces, in turn, propose to separate Los Angeles into boroughs.

Both papers are quick to defend coverage and blast bias claims, yet still cling to pro- and anti-secession arguments. "The Times position has been that [Los Angeles] should stay one city," says Leo Wolinsky, Times deputy managing editor. "The editorial page has followed that, but I don't think it has worked its way into the newsroom."

The debate over coverage reached a high point in late May when Times media writer David Shaw took on the issue in a scathing, two-part series that found both negatives and positives in the papers' coverage, and pointed out how each paper would likely gain through the different outcomes. The series prompted a war of words between William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and CEO of News-parent MediaNews Group Inc., and John Carroll, editor of the Times. After Singleton called Shaw's reporting "typical hack journalism," Carroll (in E&P) said Singleton "knows nothing about us," and called his claim that the News would drive the Times out of the Valley as "wishful thinking."

How green is thy turf?

More important, perhaps, than the coverage of the secession issue is how each would cover the new Valley municipality if the ballot measure is approved. Logic would dictate that both papers, if they want to compete heatedly in the Valley, would pour more resources into the area. The Times leads in Valley weekday circulation, with 151,190 to the Daily News' 127,085, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations' December 2001 audit report.

"There would have to be a substantial expenditure of money for both staffing and news hole," says Daily News Editor Butler. Times Publisher John Puerner vows to step up coverage if a new city is created, but offers few specifics. "We are not going to cede our position in the Valley," he tells E&P. "It's hard to say now, but we have an idea as to how we can cover the Valley if the government changes."

Despite the Times' circulation lead in the Valley, some observers, both inside and outside the paper, say the Times has already shed resources there. As part of a local-section makeover last year, the paper reduced Valley staffing and outwardly proclaimed it would focus more on regional and state issues in the "B" section. "The Valley operation is a shadow of its former self," says one Times editor who requests anonymity.

In addition, the paper's four zoned local sections -- which had been labeled for each area ("Metro," "Valley," "Orange County," and "Ventura County") -- took the same "California" section name under the makeover, while remaining zoned. "We wanted to reposition the first part of the paper to allow more comprehensive coverage of big issues facing the region and the state," Puerner explains.

Another question is how secession would affect each paper's coverage of its rival's turf. Although the Daily News concentrates on Valley needs, it is required to cover Los Angeles city government now because the Valley is part of the city. If a new government takes over, an argument for less Los Angeles reporting would make sense.

But, while the Valley would be served by a separate city government following secession, it would remain under the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles Water District, and numerous other public-service agencies, all of which would require attention. "I don't see any reduction in coverage there," Butler says.

For the Times, the answer is not as simple. The paper will have to decide if it's worth expanding coverage in the Valley to battle the Daily News, while maintaining its core areas in downtown Los Angeles and other suburbs. Says Cynthia Z. Rawitch, chair of the journalism department at California State University, Northridge: "The Times no longer has a vision of the Valley. The Valley is no longer their battleground."

The war between the stats

But a battle could very well ensue, especially if a new city government were to provide the opportunity for new readers, advertisers, and marketing opportunities. Still, observers' views are mixed over what kind of windfall either paper could receive on the business side through secession.

Surprisingly, Daily News executives maintain that little, if any, new revenue from either advertising or circulation is likely. "Advertisers don't look at government borders -- they look at customers they serve," says Daily News Publisher John Schueler, who also downplays talk of a major circulation boom. "I don't see a huge swing in that." But Schueler admits that being the hometown paper in the sixth-largest city in America will give the Daily News more national stature. "It does put the Daily News in a spotlight," he adds. The Times' Puerner agrees that secession would have little effect on business-side efforts, but says the paper would look at any and all marketing opportunities carefully.

Of the 278,275 Valley readers who take either the Daily News or the Times, only 31,009 subscribe to both, according to Times statistics. (The Daily News declined to provide a breakdown of its Valley readership.) Local experts say that duplicate circulation could very well be affected by secession. "A lot more people would make a choice," says Saiz of the Center for Southern California Studies. "Some would add the Daily News, and some might not want to pay for both."

Supervisor Yaroslavsky says Times readers likely would not drop the paper, but could pick up the Daily News as a second read. "The Daily News would have more influence over the new city government," Yaroslavsky says.

The area's continued population growth also plays into the readership picture. Los Angeles and Los Angeles County both continue to see sharp growth, with the city's population rising to 3,694,820 in 2000 from 3,485,398 in 1990, and the county's population jumping to 9,519,338 in 2000 from 8,863,164 in 1990. With each paper's Valley penetration hovering around 25%, there is plenty of room for more readers.

"We will probably develop something to capitalize on it," says Jack Klunder, vice president of circulation for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, including the Daily News and seven other MediaNews dailies. "But I would be surprised if there are large numbers [of readers] affected by it."

Commanding views

Even if the Daily News or Times sharply increase circulation in the Valley, none of it will matter unless advertising follows, a possibility over which many local experts still differ.

We don't really think that will change," says Ron Reiter, general manager of Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising of Los Angeles. "It's not going to make any difference because the Daily News will continue to be viewed as a suburban paper and the L.A. Times will be perceived as the major metropolitan paper."

Puerner says a significant amount of the Times advertising is national, while the Daily News has more retail advertising from Valley businesses. In their head-to-head marketplace competition overall, the Times gets about 77% of the run-of-press placements and the Daily News receives about 23%, according to Competitive Media Reporting.

"Daily News advertisers and circulation will increase because people will want to know more about what is going on in the new city," says Fleming of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley. "National advertising will depend on how those advertisers view the region."

Another potential source of revenue would be the legal notices and public notices that an autonomous Valley would generate. Right now, the Daily News receives about $750,000 annually in legal notices, according to Schueler. Times spokeswoman Martha Goldstein declines to reveal her paper's public-notices income. Local experts estimate that a new Valley city could provide between $500,000 and $750,000 in public-notice advertising, especially in the first few years when so many organizational approvals and public meetings are needed.

"It would be substantial," consultant Len Wood says. "The location and convenience of the Daily News in the Valley would provide a strong argument for making the Daily News the official paper."

In the end, neither paper will escape being forever affected by secession if it goes through. For the Times' Puerner, the approach is methodical. "There is some risk and some opportunity," he tells E&P. "We will try to minimize the risk and capitalize on the opportunity." Says his counterpart, Schueler of the Daily News, "It is very exciting, and I think newspapers rally at this kind of stuff."